Orthodox Reflections

The COVID-19 vaccines are arriving, and with them is a compelling need to state that as a matter of fundamental human rights, final decisions on medical treatments, including vaccinations, should be made by the patient or the patient’s parents in case of a minor. This is non-negotiable. The right to voluntary, informed consent is recognized and supported by the Russian Orthodox Church as shown in this statement from the  Patriarchal Commission on the Family:

It is well known that, along with the risk of infectious diseases, there is also a risk of serious complications — even death — as a result of prophylactic vaccination. In such a situation, it is the patient himself who should make the choice. In the case of a child, the parents should make their choice in each particular case, taking into account the advice and recommendations of specialists, as well as other information. No one has the right to make this choice for them, even if guided by the child’s own well-informed understanding.

To date, Orthodox Bishops in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere in the West have not taken the important step of recognizing the fundamental right of patients to decide their own medical care in the case of vaccines. For that reason, we are urging all Orthodox Christians to please sign this petition imploring our bishops to both stand up to current COVID restrictions, and very importantly, to issue a joint statement advocating for vaccine freedom.

As part of this appeal to support this fundamental human right, we would like to provide the following information to those who are concerned about supporting vaccine freedom.

Supporting voluntary, informed consent does not make you anti-vaccine.

Many ethical physicians, such as those who belong to Physicians for Informed Consent, understand that final decisions on medical treatments, including vaccinations, should be made by the patient or the patient’s parents in case of a minor:

Informed consent involves the basic human right to consent or refuse a medical treatment or procedure, including vaccination. The consent must be voluntary. If a patient, or parent of a patient, is coerced or threatened in any way into consenting for vaccination (including statutory or government mandated exclusion from school), then the “consent” obtained is actually coerced consent, not informed consent.

We view vaccines as pharmaceutical drugs and/or medicines, and we respect everyone’s right to the informed consent (or informed refusal) of drugs and/or medicines. Therefore, this organization is not ideologically pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine, but rather is pro-health, pro-ethics, and pro-informed consent in vaccination (like any other medical procedure).

There are many types of coercion, and all of them are immoral.

There is very little likelihood that army / police will come through your neighborhood and demand you submit to a vaccine. However, there are many other types of coercion, some purely in the private sector, which are both possible and immoral:

• Limiting ability of students to enroll in face-to-face classes
• Mandatory vaccines to receive certain government benefits. For example, no vaccine means no unemployment check. Or, no vaccine means no access to government offices, courts, etc.
• Limited ability to travel, particularly internationally. The head of Australia’s largest airline, Qantas, said that once a virus vaccine becomes widely available, his carrier will likely require passengers use it before they can travel abroad or land in Australia. He expects other airlines and travel-related companies will follow suit.
• Mandatory vaccine in order to hold a job working with the public such as in Health Care, hospitality, retail, etc.
• Your employer could require the vaccine for you to hold your job, even if the government does not.
• Vaccine required to attend concerts or other events. No proof of vaccine, no admittance – and this can be done by the venue or ticket company without government mandate.
• For some professionals and businesses, no liability or other insurance unless everyone working is vaccinated.

Even if the vaccine is not “mandated” by law, as you can see from the above list, that fact can be rapidly rendered irrelevant. As this is a moral issue, we expect Orthodox Christian Bishops to be at the forefront of protecting the rights of individuals to make their own informed decisions, free of any form of coercion.

There are substantial risks for many patients. 

Several of the vaccines use mRNA technology which has never been used before. One of the companies, Moderna, has actually never brought a drug to market. No coronavirus vaccine has ever been produced before. Depending on the vaccine – the technology is new, the manufacturer is new, and/or the type of virus being vaccinated against is new. Therefore, there is a lot of concern, particularly over the speed with which these vaccines were developed.

The reported side effects of the vaccines can be quite serious, even when considered “routine.”  As reported by ABC Channel 7 out of New York:

Americans need to be prepared for the possibility that they may feel a little unwell after they get a coronavirus vaccine, if one is authorized, members of a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee said Monday.

 

Volunteers in vaccine trials have reported they frequently feel flu-like effects after getting vaccinated, and members of the ACIP — as well as liaison representatives who take part in the discussion — said that could affect people’s willingness to get vaccinated in the first place, or to get the second dose of the two-vaccine regimen.

 

“As a practicing physician, I have got to be sure my patients will come back for the second dose. We really have got to make patients aware that this is not going to be a walk in the park,” Dr. Sandra Fryhofer of the Emory University School of Medicine, representing the American Medical Association, told the meeting.

Curiously, as much as 80% of the “cases” of COVID-19 are asymptomatic. For many people, it might be better to catch the virus than to have the vaccine.

But much more severe side effects are quite possible. While no vaccine has ever existed for a coronavirus, prior experience with flu vaccines indicate about 1% of those vaccinated required hospitalization and as many as 1 in 200 of those die. The following list is from the FDA (download the PDF here) and illustrates the potential side effects of the COVID-19 vaccines which are of concern:

Anyone with an existing condition on that list, or with risk factors for any of them, should be very cautious at this stage about taking one of these vaccines. As the vaccines roll out and testing continues, serious side effects are being reported. Two healthcare workers in the UK suffered anaphylactoid reactions after receiving the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. Four people who got Pfizer‘s coronavirus vaccine in the firm’s trial developed Bell’s palsy, a form of temporary facial paralysis. Six people in total died during the Pfizer COVID vaccine trials, and we have so far not been given any details on their deaths.

Further, a safety guide to the vaccine produced by the UK government warns that pregnant or lactating women should avoid vaccination, and that pregnancy should be avoided for at least two months after the second dose. The guide also says, “It is unknown whether COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 has an impact on fertility.” If you are female and you plan to become a mother, especially in the near term, it may be best to wait on a vaccine. If you employ women of child-bearing age, you should also think very carefully before pressuring any of them to take a vaccine.

No one should be coerced in any way by any authority to take this vaccine as not all people are the same, and not all results will be the same. 

The vaccine may not even be worth it.

As has been noted many times, COVID-19 is not a particularly deadly disease. The vast majority of people who get it will have mild to no symptoms and will survive. Here is a recent Tweet from journalist Alex Berenson that drives that point home: “Today’s reminder that in Italy – the big developed country worst-hit by the ro – the odds of a healthy person under 40 dying from #Covid this year are 0.00006%. Yes, less than 1 in 1 million. True story, bro.”

With the risk of death so low, and side effects such a concern, why would most people even consider getting the vaccine? Two possible reasons (other than coercion) – prevent severe cases that might overwhelm the hospitals and to “stop the spread” which protects the more vulnerable.

The testing protocols to establish the “effectiveness” of the vaccines appear to have been “designed to succeed” and don’t really indicate if they will be effective at preventing severe cases of the disease. The following is from Forbes:

Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson are leading candidates for the completion of a Covid-19 vaccine likely to be released in the coming months. These companies have published their vaccine trial protocols. This unusually transparent action during a major drug trial deserves praise, close inspection of the protocols raises surprising concerns. These trials seem designed to prove their vaccines work, even if the measured effects are minimal.

 

The second surprise from these protocols is how mild the requirements for contracted Covid-19 symptoms are. A careful reading reveals that the minimum qualification for a case of Covid-19 is a positive PCR test and one or two mild symptoms. These include headache, fever, cough, or mild nausea. This is far from adequate. These vaccine trials are testing to prevent common cold symptoms. These trials certainly do not give assurance that the vaccine will protect from the serious consequences of Covid-19. Johnson & Johnson is the only trial that requires the inclusion of severe Covid-19 cases, at least 5 for the 75 participant interim analysis.

We frankly have no idea at this point if the vaccines will really work to stop severe cases. Further, we also have no idea if these vaccines will stop the spread of the disease. WUSA Channel 9 in Washington talked to Dr. William Moss from Johns Hopkins University and Dr. David Diemert, a vaccines expert from George Washington University, and reported the following:

According to Dr. Diemert, in the same way we don’t know if the vaccines stop the virus from coming into your body, we also don’t know about it leaving a vaccinated body.

 

“It doesn’t necessarily mean it wouldn’t stop someone from transmitting it to someone else,” he said.

 

We don’t know if a vaccinated person can still pass coronavirus onto another person.

 

“These vaccines are not going to be the silver bullet to end the pandemic and we’re gonna be able to go back to pre-pandemic lifestyle in January, February,” Dr. Moss said. “It’s not going to be like that.”

At this point, you could be taking all the risk for no benefit in terms of protecting others. That point is especially important to hammer home to Christian leaders, who have tended to make following COVID protocols into a kind of moral obligation for “loving your neighbor” or “protecting the least of these.”

Sign the Petition!

If you want to take one of the vaccines, great! If you have questions, also fine. The point is that this is a medical procedure and it is your choice. The canonical Orthodox Bishops in the United States represent the world’s second largest Christian body and for many, even outside the Church, they provide a link to ancient and revered Christian wisdom. It is time for our bishops, and the Roman Catholic prelates as well, to assert that we have the inalienable right to decide on medical care for ourselves and our minor children. Respecting that right is a moral obligation imposed on the rest of society. Even if the vaccine works, even if it is generally safe – none of that impacts our God-given right to decide for ourselves. As the Russian Church has affirmed, so should our bishops. Please sign the petition today.

Irene – member of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America with over 20 years experience in Health Care